Started as a blog for my fringe reviews in 2010, it is about to transmogrify into all my reviewy outpourings about Fringe, cabaret, rock gigs and movies. I hope you will enjoy.
xx ian

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

DEAD CAT BOUNCE - CAGED HEAT

DEAD CAT BOUNCE

CAGED HEAT

Excess tent

Gluttony

9:15pm Tues – Sat

8:15pm Sun-Mon

Til March 13th (no Wed)

Irish four-piece comedy rock band, DEAD CAT BOUNCE made their first trip to Australia last year and they were an instant sensation at the Adelaide Fringe & Melbourne Comedy Festivals. It was a sensation that was well deserved. Great musicians, fantastically well realised stage personas, and above all else, really funny songs. This time around front-man Jim is keen to let us know they are more than just a ‘joke’ band: “We are more like a concept rock band” he says before being comprehensively contradicted by Shane, Damian and Mick (“More like a gag band, aren't we?”). This does not stop them launching into The Weeping of the Willows, a Springsteen-esque tale of Reagan-era America told through the lens of Wind In The Willows. Next up is Christians in Love, a song so packed with fantastic gags about the wedding night of a Christian couple, you’ll have to buy a CD on the way out to catch them all. My favourite line is:

“Like a chimpanzee in a buffet cart, They’re grabbing at things before they know what they are, and seeing if they can fit them in their mouths.”

I really wanted them to rush down to the Garden the other night and sing this to the God-Botherers that were protesting at the gates. With the exception of three songs (including the brilliant Switzerland) from last year, it’s all new material. My Party Now is an examination of all the ways people can mess up a perfectly good party.

Shane takes lead vocals for This Wolf Howls Alone, which is plenty funny, but the sight of Mick pulling baby wolf faces while playing the drums is completely priceless. There’s a drug fuelled song wondering if Pigeons & Pirates are the same thing because ‘They both often have one leg’ and ‘If you put their head under their wing they go to sleep’. But I can’t even tell you the names of my two favourite songs, for fear of spoiling the jokes, but rest assured, the last two songs in the set are flipping classics. I’ve made no secret how much I loved these guys last year, as they press all my buttons. Music, comedy, musical comedy. Great songs played with sniper-tight precision.

On Sunday evening they had a special guest with Tom Binns doing 15 minutes of his Ivan Brackenbury show which kept the entire DCB audience in stitches.

DEAD CAT BOUNCE sure fire winners, if you see only one show this Fringe see this one – Twice!